Discoveries: Coptic Egypt

Discoveries: Coptic Egypt PDF Author: Christian Cannuyer
Publisher: Harry N. Abrams
ISBN: 9780810929791
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 92

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Book Description
Egypt, land of the Bible, has been home since the time of Christ to an ancient sect of Christians called the Copts. According to legend, Mark the Evangelist founded their church in Alexandria in the 1st century AD, when Egypt was under Roman rule and practiced polytheistic religions. Though Egypt long ago became a Muslim nation, the Copts maintained their traditions and rites at monasteries and villages throughout the Nile Valley, the river delta, and the Mediterranean coast, and still do so today.

Discoveries: Coptic Egypt

Discoveries: Coptic Egypt PDF Author: Christian Cannuyer
Publisher: Harry N. Abrams
ISBN: 9780810929791
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 92

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Book Description
Egypt, land of the Bible, has been home since the time of Christ to an ancient sect of Christians called the Copts. According to legend, Mark the Evangelist founded their church in Alexandria in the 1st century AD, when Egypt was under Roman rule and practiced polytheistic religions. Though Egypt long ago became a Muslim nation, the Copts maintained their traditions and rites at monasteries and villages throughout the Nile Valley, the river delta, and the Mediterranean coast, and still do so today.

Early Christian Books in Egypt

Early Christian Books in Egypt PDF Author: Roger S. Bagnall
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 1400833787
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 128

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Book Description
For the past hundred years, much has been written about the early editions of Christian texts discovered in the region that was once Roman Egypt. Scholars have cited these papyrus manuscripts--containing the Bible and other Christian works--as evidence of Christianity's presence in that historic area during the first three centuries AD. In Early Christian Books in Egypt, distinguished papyrologist Roger Bagnall shows that a great deal of this discussion and scholarship has been misdirected, biased, and at odds with the realities of the ancient world. Providing a detailed picture of the social, economic, and intellectual climate in which these manuscripts were written and circulated, he reveals that the number of Christian books from this period is likely fewer than previously believed. Bagnall explains why papyrus manuscripts have routinely been dated too early, how the role of Christians in the history of the codex has been misrepresented, and how the place of books in ancient society has been misunderstood. The author offers a realistic reappraisal of the number of Christians in Egypt during early Christianity, and provides a thorough picture of the economics of book production during the period in order to determine the number of Christian papyri likely to have existed. Supporting a more conservative approach to dating surviving papyri, Bagnall examines the dramatic consequences of these findings for the historical understanding of the Christian church in Egypt.

Coptic Christians and Muslims in Egypt

Coptic Christians and Muslims in Egypt PDF Author: Fikry Andrawes
Publisher:
ISBN: 9789774168703
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 300

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Book Description
For the most part of their shared history, Copts and Muslims in Egypt have experienced bouts of sectarian tension alternating with peaceful coexistence. Copts and Muslims in Egypt tells the story of Muslim-Christian relations in Egypt from the coming of Islam to the aftermath of the January 2011 revolution. It begins by describing how the Church of Alexandria came into existence, and created a monastic tradition that would influence the whole of Christendom, before exploring the theological controversies that plagued the Eastern Roman world before the advent of Islam. After bouts of persecution by the Roman emperors, the Copts were strongly opposed by the Melkite Church, but, with the Arab invasion of Egypt in the seventh century, they achieved a measure of independence and individuality that they retained over the centuries. The Copts were also subjected to periods of persecution--by rulers from the Umayyad, Abbasid, and Fatimid dynasties, and under the Mamluks--but by and large, a relatively satisfactory form of cohabitation was established. The authors argue that, even if they were occasionally attacked and persecuted, the Copts generally shared the fortunes of their Muslim neighbors, and that religious difference in Egypt was frequently exploited by rulers, both internal and external, for political gain. Copts and Muslims in Egypt provides an engaging and highly readable account of communal relations through key points in Egyptian history.

Christians in Egypt

Christians in Egypt PDF Author: Andrea B. Rugh
Publisher: Springer
ISBN: 1137566132
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 249

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Book Description
Christians in the Middle East have come under increasing pressure in recent years with the rise of radical Islam. In Egypt, the large Coptic Christian community has traditionally played an important political and historical role. This book examines Egyptian Christians' responses to sectarian pressures in both national and local contexts.

Christians and Muslims in Early Islamic Egypt

Christians and Muslims in Early Islamic Egypt PDF Author: Lajos Berkes
Publisher: University of Michigan Press
ISBN: 0979975816
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 225

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Book Description
This volume collects studies exploring the relationship of Christians and Muslims in everyday life in Early Islamic Egypt (642–10th c.) focusing mainly, but not exclusively on administrative and social history. The contributions concentrate on the papyrological documentation preserved in Greek, Coptic, and Arabic. By doing so, this book transcends traditional disciplinary boundaries and offers results based on a holistic view of the documentary material. The articles of this volume discuss various aspects of change and continuity from Byzantine to Islamic Egypt and offer also the (re)edition of 23 papyrus documents in Greek, Coptic, and Arabic. The authors provide a showcase of recent papyrological research on this under-studied, but dynamically evolving field. After an introduction by the editor of the volume that outlines the most important trends and developments of the period, the first two essays shed light on Egypt as part of the Caliphate. The following six articles, the bulk of the volume, deal with the interaction and involvement of the Egyptian population with the new Muslim administrative apparatus. The last three studies of the volume focus on naming practices and language change.

Christians Versus Muslims in Modern Egypt

Christians Versus Muslims in Modern Egypt PDF Author: S. S. Hasan
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
ISBN: 0195138686
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 337

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Book Description
Review: "Christians versus Muslims in Modern Egypt is the first study of Christian identity politics in contemporary Egypt. S.S. Hasan begins by looking at how the Coptic generation of the 1940s and 1950s remembered, recovered, and imagined the ancient history of Christianity in Egypt in order to weld the Copts into a unified nation, resistant to the growing encroachments of Islam. She argues that this interpretation of history, in which Egyptian martyrs figure prominently, made possible the rebirth of the Coptic church and community - in much the same way as the preservation of Hebrew and the historical memory of Jewish tribulations served the purpose of national reconstruction of the state of Israel."--Jacket

Christianizing Egypt

Christianizing Egypt PDF Author: David Frankfurter
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 0691216789
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 344

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Book Description
How does a culture become Christian, especially one that is heir to such ancient traditions and spectacular monuments as Egypt? This book offers a new model for envisioning the process of Christianization by looking at the construction of Christianity in the various social and creative worlds active in Egyptian culture during late antiquity. As David Frankfurter shows, members of these different social and creative worlds came to create different forms of Christianity according to their specific interests, their traditional idioms, and their sense of what the religion could offer. Reintroducing the term “syncretism” for the inevitable and continuous process by which a religion is acculturated, the book addresses the various formations of Egyptian Christianity that developed in the domestic sphere, the worlds of holy men and saints’ shrines, the work of craftsmen and artisans, the culture of monastic scribes, and the reimagination of the landscape itself, through processions, architecture, and the potent remains of the past. Drawing on sermons and magical texts, saints’ lives and figurines, letters and amulets, and comparisons with Christianization elsewhere in the Roman empire and beyond, Christianizing Egypt reconceives religious change—from the “conversion” of hearts and minds to the selective incorporation and application of strategies for protection, authority, and efficacy, and for imagining the environment.

Christianity in the Land of the Pharaohs

Christianity in the Land of the Pharaohs PDF Author: Jill Kamil
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1136797874
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 338

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Book Description
An engaging survey of Coptic Christianity in Egypt since Pharaonic times, through its development under Rome, Byzantium, Islam and beyond. Ideal reading for students of Egyptian history and Christianity.

American Evangelicals in Egypt

American Evangelicals in Egypt PDF Author: Heather J. Sharkey
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 0691168105
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 336

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Book Description
In 1854, American Presbyterian missionaries arrived in Egypt as part of a larger Anglo-American Protestant movement aiming for worldwide evangelization. Protected by British imperial power, and later by mounting American global influence, their enterprise flourished during the next century. American Evangelicals in Egypt follows the ongoing and often unexpected transformations initiated by missionary activities between the mid-nineteenth century and 1967--when the Six-Day Arab-Israeli War uprooted the Americans in Egypt. Heather Sharkey uses Arabic and English sources to shed light on the many facets of missionary encounters with Egyptians. These occurred through institutions, such as schools and hospitals, and through literacy programs and rural development projects that anticipated later efforts of NGOs. To Egyptian Muslims and Coptic Christians, missionaries presented new models for civic participation and for women's roles in collective worship and community life. At the same time, missionary efforts to convert Muslims and reform Copts stimulated new forms of Egyptian social activism and prompted nationalists to enact laws restricting missionary activities. Faced by Islamic strictures and customs regarding apostasy and conversion, and by expectations regarding the proper structure of Christian-Muslim relations, missionaries in Egypt set off debates about religious liberty that reverberate even today. Ultimately, the missionary experience in Egypt led to reconsiderations of mission policy and evangelism in ways that had long-term repercussions for the culture of American Protestantism.

Recording Village Life

Recording Village Life PDF Author: Jennifer Cromwell
Publisher: University of Michigan Press
ISBN: 0472123114
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 321

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Book Description
Recording Village Life presents a close study of over 140 Coptic texts written between 724–756 CE by a single scribe, Aristophanes son of Johannes, of the village Djeme in western Thebes. These texts, which focus primarily on taxation and property concerns, yield a wealth of knowledge about social and economic changes happening at both the community and country-wide levels during the early years of Islamic rule in Egypt. Additionally, they offer a fascinating picture of the scribe’s role within this world, illuminating both the practical aspects of his work and the social and professional connections with clients for whom he wrote legal documents. Papyrological analysis of Aristophanes’ documents, within the context of the textual record of the village, shows a new and divergent scribal practice that reflects broader trends among his contemporaries: Aristophanes was part of a larger, national system of administrative changes, enacted by the country’s Arab rulers in order to better control administrative practices and fiscal policies within the country. Yet Aristophanes’ dossier shows him not just as an administrator, revealing details about his life, his role in the community, and the elite networks within which he operated. This unique perspective provides new insights into both the micro-history of an individual’s experience of eighth-century Theban village life, and its reflection in the macro social, economic, and political trends in Egypt at this time. This book will prove valuable to scholars of late antique studies, papyrology, philology, early Islamic history, social and economic history, and Egyptology.